


Aftermath

by mldrgrl



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-07 00:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6776818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mldrgrl/pseuds/mldrgrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By popuar demand, here is a Sequel to Love Autopsy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

At 5:30 p.m., Mulder’s heart was in his throat. He had been pacing his apartment for over two hours. The anticipation of the 6:00 p.m. deadline had made him restless and overwrought. He felt like he could go out and run a 10K marathon fueled strictly on the power of his nervous energy, because he certainly hadn’t gotten any sleep in two days and hardly ate.

 

At 5:59 p.m., he pressed his eye to the peephole in his door.

 

At 6:00 p.m. sharp, he opened the door and checked the empty hallway. He told himself there could be any number of reasons why she could be late.

 

By 6:15 p.m., his fingers itched to dial her number, but he restrained himself.

 

At 11:23 p.m., exhausted, he resigned himself to the fact that she wasn’t coming.

 

*****

 

Monday morning was bright and sunny, taunting Mulder with its cheery freshness. The news reported that the cherry blossoms were hitting peak bloom and that it was shaping up to be a beautiful week.

 

As he got ready for work, he gave himself a pep talk in the mirror. You can do this. You can do this. You can do this. He told her they’d stay partners and best friends and he’d meant it when it wrote it, but he truly never believed there’d be a possibility he would have to follow through with such lofty intentions. What an absurd thing to promise. How was he going to look at her, be in the same room as her, stand next to her, smell her perfume, and not want more? Especially since, for one night, he _had_ more.

 

How was he going to look at her and not think about the crushing blow of rejection? She could shoot him again and it would probably be less painful than laying his heart bare at her feet and having it quietly spurned. It was his own fault though; he gave her an out and she took it.

 

You can do it. You can do it. You can do it.

 

He could do it because he told her he would and if he wanted to hang on to any shred of hope that she might change her mind, he would have to.

 

The office was cold and quiet when he came in. The sun streaming down through the skylight helped a little, but if it was chilly for him, it would be chilly for her. He went back into the hall and adjusted the thermostat and then started the coffeemaker. He was at his desk skimming his email when the office phone rang.

 

For a moment, his heart stopped. His first thought was that it must be her, calling to tell him she wouldn’t be in today. She might say she was sick, but he’d know it would be because she didn’t want to face him. When he saw Skinner’s extension on the ID, his second thought was that she’d call Skinner and had him tell her she was calling out sick, because not only did she not want to see him, she didn’t want to speak to him either. With a sigh, Mulder answered the phone and then held his breath.

 

“I need you up here,” Skinner said. “I’ve got a file for you and it needs immediate attention. Kimberly’s already booked your flights.”

 

“Scully’s not here yet, Sir.”

 

“You can brief her later. I’ve got a meeting and this can’t wait.”

 

Skinner hung up and Mulder went upstairs to get the file. He listened half-heartedly as Skinner went over the assignment. It didn’t seem very important, just a run of the mill weeping statue, but a Senator’s mother was involved somehow and that made it A Big Deal. Drop everything, top priority. Their flight out to Sheridan, Wyoming left in two hours.

 

Scully was in the office when Mulder returned and he paused in the doorway, steeling himself. Her overcoat was still on, so either she’d just gotten there, or it was still too chilly for her. She was hunched over her laptop, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee.

 

“Morning, Scully,” he said, proud that his voice didn’t crack or betray the painful ache in his chest.

 

“Morning,” she answered, focused on her computer. “It’s freezing in here.”

 

“I turned the thermostat up when I got in. We’re leaving anyway.”

 

“We are?”

 

“Skinner’s orders.” He passed her the file in his hand and the travel itinerary, studying her face as she studied the file. She looked calm, but tired, and she didn’t meet his eyes when she took the case. He wanted to crawl into a hole.

 

“Wyoming?” she finally said, glancing up. “We’ve never been to Wyoming. I don’t think.”

 

Those eyes. Those clear, blue eyes. They made him tongue-tied. He shrugged and turned away to go to his desk. “I suppose we haven’t,” he said. “First time for everything.” He had to pause to collect himself thinking of another first time a week ago. “Do you need to go home to pack?”

 

“Overnight bag’s in the car.” She shut down her laptop and slipped it into its carrier. “Mulder, look…”

 

“You don’t have to say anything.”

 

“I just think that…”

 

“Save it for another day.” He shrugged on his overcoat, knowing with absolute certainty that he could not have a conversation that wasn’t about work with her right now. His nerves, and his emotions, were far too raw. “The Equality State beckons.”

 

It took three days to uncover the hoax behind the weeping statue. Nothing but a prank, but it was a welcome distraction for Mulder. He kept his mind on the case during the day, interviewing locals and witnesses, and Scully was tucked away in a lab somewhere running tests and gathering samples. They met at the diner across the street from their hotel at dinner time to go over the day’s findings over French fries and burgers and then retreated to their rooms to repeat the same process the next day.

 

When they got home late on Wednesday evening, they went their separate ways at the terminal exit - she, to long-term parking, and he to the taxi stand. She offered to give him a ride back to the Hoover building to pick up his car, but he just wanted to go home and he was still finding it a little hard to be in such close quarters with her.

 

He dropped his bag at the door, shrugged off his overcoat, said hello to the fish, and flopped down on his couch. Normally, a case that was such a bust would’ve annoyed him, but he was too depressed to be annoyed. The hope he’d had on Monday had dwindled away to almost nothing. Scully had not betrayed a hint of any emotional turmoil, if she had any. It was a relief and it was agony.

 

An hour passed and he didn’t move, exhausted from keeping up appearances and wallowing in self-pity. He wanted to hate her, but he loved her too much to try. Besides, she was probably right to refuse him. She could do so much better. He always knew it.

 

His eyes finally closed and then snapped back open at a soft knocking at his door. Lethargically, he pushed himself up from the couch and didn’t bother looking through the peephole to see who it was. If it was Cancerman himself, come to smite him, so be it. He would go down without a fight.

 

“Scully?” he asked, genuinely surprised to see her when he opened the door.

 

Her eyes were red-rimmed and her brows were tight together in an expression he’d never seen before. He couldn’t tell if it was rage or worry. She smacked her hand to his chest, palm flat, and he stumbled back a step. Rage, then.

 

“God, Mulder,” she said. Her voice was almost non-existent, like somehow between the airport and showing up at his door she’d developed laryngitis.

 

Concerned, he reached up to cover her hand at his chest and felt the edge of a piece of paper under his fingers. She slipped her hand out from under his and he was left holding his own letter in puzzlement. Why now? And why were her eyes brimming with tears?

 

“I haven’t been home since I left for church on Sunday morning,” she eked out. Her voice was still weak, but steadily grew stronger. “I stayed at my Mother’s. God, Mulder, what you must have thought of me. What were you thinking?”

 

It hit him full force in that moment. She’d never gotten the letter. And she was here. Which meant, 6:00 p.m. Sunday was now, 12:41 a.m. on Thursday. He pulled her through the threshold and shoved the door closed, dropping the letter to the ground so he could cup her cheeks with both hands.

 

“Scully…”

 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

 

He didn’t need her to be sorry, he just needed her to be there. His lips met hers and he forgot everything about the last four days. He wove his fingers through her hair and she grabbed onto his forearms as though she was caught between pulling him closer or shoving him away. She pulled, though, and he followed until she bumped into the table in the foyer.

 

With a whimper from her, their lips slipped apart. She put her hands behind her and lifted up onto her toes to slide up onto the table, knees parted enough so he could fit comfortably between them. Her boots hit the backs of his knees as she wrapped her legs around him. Bracing one hand on the table and the other at the back of her head, he kissed her again and began to lay her back as her hands rested lightly at his ribs.

 

They were both still in their work clothes, which meant things were too constricting and there were too many layers. He had to stop kissing her, which he was loathe to do, but his jacket was too warm and his tie was too tight and he needed to find her skin before he imploded.

 

He made quick work of his coat, and then hers, and he couldn’t help but place a soft kiss to her neck and moved her collar aside to taste the dip of her collarbone. His fingers automatically felt for the buttons on her shirt.

 

“I need to tell you,” she murmured, raking her fingers through his hair. “I need to explain.” He groaned and shivered as her nails scratched his scalp.

 

“Explain,” he mumbled against her chest. “You have my full attention.”

 

“I wanted to be with you that night. I did. It felt right.”

 

“It was perfect.” He gave a quick kiss to her chin as he untucked her shirt from her pants.

“Yes.” She began unknotting his tie as he memorized the soft skin of her belly with his thumbs. “I thought so too. And I woke up warm and happy and feeling like it had been the only time we’d ever truly been on the same page.”

 

“More often than not we’re not even in the same book,” he teased, sliding his hands up to cup her breasts and trace the lacy trim. He didn’t want to fully expose her yet, though. He wanted to take his time, uncover her little by little, savor the experience. She pulled his tie through his collar and dropped it to the floor and went to work on his buttons.

 

“It felt right,” she continued. “But it was just a moment. Moments aren’t a big picture.”

 

“Moments make up the big picture, though.”

 

“I know.” She pushed his shirt off over his shoulders and it fell to the floor behind him. He scraped his undershirt off on his own and her hands trailed down his bare chest until her fingers caught in his waistband. She stared at his chest and he stared at the perfect curve of her upper lip, stroking her arms, waiting for something more. After a few moments of silence, she lowered her head and her hair slipped down, hiding her face from him.

 

“Scully?” he whispered, framing her face and lifting it back up so he could see her.

 

“I doubted you,” she whispered. “No, that’s not true. I doubted myself. I thought it might change me. Or that we would change somehow and I didn’t want that. I like what we are to each other and what we have. I’ve never had anything like it before.”

 

“Me either.”

 

“I know you love me, Mulder. I love you too, but the versions of each other we love are incomplete. I know you as a partner and a friend, but not as a lover. We’ve never been simply a man and a woman sharing time together.”

 

“So, I could’ve saved us both a lot of trouble by just asking you out on a date?”

 

She closed her eyes and quietly scoffed, her lips curling slightly, but then her chin began to wobble and her lashes grew wet. He hated seeing her cry. He kissed her all over her face, on her neck and forehead and brow, and then wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against his chest.

 

“I don’t want this to change the way you look at me,” she said. “I don’t want you to think if I disagree with you over a report it’s because we had an argument that morning about how you still squeeze the toothpaste from the middle of the tube.”

 

“So we just get his and hers toothpaste tubes and the problem will solve itself.”

 

She lifted her head up and he looked down at her and smiled. She still looked weary to him, but there was something else there too. Something that looked like adoration. He needed to find a way to end this conversation so he could let her get to know him as a lover.

 

“Look, I get it,” he said, indulging in caressing her back as he spoke. “We were, we are partners first, and domesticity complicates things. It will probably get in the way at some point because I can’t promise I won’t squeeze the toothpaste wrong or leave my shoes somewhere you'll trip over them or God forbid, forget to lower the toilet seat. But, Scully, you’ve permeated all aspects of my life for years now.

 

“At first, I always wanted your opinion and your expertise and your arguments. You challenged me professionally and I found it frustrating and exhilarating at the same time. And then I wanted it personally. Beyond the work. If something bad happens, I always wish you’re with me to help me through it. When something good happens, I want you with me to share it. Not just anyone, always _you_. Is it just me that feels that way, or is that what it’s like for you too?”

 

She nodded.

 

“Imagine getting what we want,” he whispered, bending so that their foreheads rested together. “Are you imagining it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then tell me you want this for us.”

 

“I want this for us.”

 

Fulfilling one of his long-standing fantasies, he scooped her up off the table, into his arms, and carried her to his bed.

 

The End


End file.
